I come from a small, rural town in the south. It’s the kind of place where weeks or even months could go by and the most engaging thing anyone has to talk about is maybe a small burst of rain. When something interesting does happen here, it becomes the talk of the entire town in no time flat. And recently, that interesting thing was Magnolia.
I remember how shaken up everyone was when Magnolia came into town. And honestly, they were right to be surprised. Ms. Buckley, the librarian, was the first one to notice her. I can’t imagine how shocked she must’ve been to see a stark naked woman, bruised and battered, stumbling into the town square one random summer morning. Instantly, she drew the attention of every other shopkeeper, who came to see what on Earth had happened to this poor woman. They gave her spare clothes and a place to sit. They wanted to hear her story, but she never gave it to them. She never spoke a word. She only nodded or shook her head. If you ask me, had this been any other drifter they would’ve been stormed out of town for public indecency or for refusing to cooperate. I mean hell, our town wasn’t filled with saints. No, the only reason they let her stay was because she was so damn pretty.
My dad happened to be going to the general store that morning when he saw all the commotion. From the way he tells it, he pushed past the crowd and, when his eyes met hers, it was the sort of connection people only dream about. I thought that was all bullshit, but it’s what he told me. The townsfolk filled him in on the situation. They didn’t know much of anything about her other than that she was in a bad way with nowhere to go. And so, completely forgetting about his trip to the store, my dad ever-so-gallantly offered to take her into our house and let her stay for a while. I don’t know who he was trying to impress more- her, or the neighbors. But either way, he left town that morning with a strange woman in his pickup truck, and the respect of all his peers.
By the time he was driving home, I already knew about the strange woman in the town’s square. All my friends were texting me about it. None of their stories lined up. I guess that’s just the way gossip tends to go; it’s always one confusing game of telephone. Some of them said she came babbling to Mrs. Buckley about aliens. Another said she was running from her ex-husband. So, by the time I watched my dad’s pickup pull into the driveway, and saw her in the passenger’s seat, my perception of her was so distorted I didn’t even know who she was.
I hadn’t realized they were talking about the woman from the lake.
A few nights before her arrival into town, I had seen this woman before. My friends and I had a neat little spot we’d go to at the lake. Not a lot of people went there, and we knew just where to hide to not get busted when we went out drinking. And I know, I know underage drinking is bad. I’m not here for a lecture, I just want people to know what happened. And the drinking was relevant. My friends and I were hiding out, drinking some beers we got a senior to buy for us. It was getting late. The only lights we had were that of the moonlight hitting the lake, and the dim headlights of Michelle Barne’s car (or her dad’s car anyway). I don’t know how many beers I had up to that point. I just remember when Michelle nudged my shoulder.
“Taylor, do you see that?” she whispered.
There were ripples and bubbles coming from the water’s edge. Everyone was holding their breath when we saw something dark start to appear out of the lake. Not wanting to be seen, we ducked down. I think I was the first to notice what it actually was we were seeing- hair. Long, dark hair draped down over a person’s face; emerging from the water. When a pair of shoulders rose up out of the lake, we gasped. It was a person. An actual person coming out of the water. But not coming out like they had been swimming. It was almost like…like they were just walking. Like they had been casually walking along the bottom of the lakebed the entire time, and they had just come up. That just couldn’t be possible! This lake was deeper than most. I knew that most parents wouldn’t let their kids anywhere near this lake because of how deep it was. It was dangerous! So how could a person be walking out of it?
When her body had fully emerged, I felt a chill go down my spine. The mystery woman was completely naked from head to toe; the only sort of covering she had anywhere was her thick hair that was matted in clumps, drenched in lake water, clinging like spider webs to her skin. And oh god, her skin! Every inch of her looked completely bloated, water-logged even! Like if you touched her, her skin would squish with the feeling of water. And I could’ve sworn it looked like her skin had this murky sort of blue tint to it. I told myself at the time that it was just a reflection of the moonlight on the lake- that there was no way her skin was just blue. But now I’m not so sure. And the worst of it all was that there was this sort of horrible black ooze just dripping down her chin and out of her blue lips. I noticed the same ooze was pouring off of her fingertips, too. She just looked…revolting. Disgusting! Like she was a walking corpse that had been long buried under the lake. God, she wasn’t pretty then. And looking back on it, she wasn’t bruised then either.
All of us watched in silence as the woman walked out of the water. It looked like she had a very clear path. She never faltered or swerved at all. She just kept her head forward and walked in a straight line all the way out to the woods. Even after she was long gone, none of us said anything. It was as if everyone was suddenly questioning how much booze they could handle. The atmosphere soured really fast, so we all decided to call it a night and go to our homes. No one said anything. We didn’t want to tell anyone what we had seen- we didn’t want to get in trouble for being out there. I really didn’t know if I was ever going to see that woman again anyway.
And when I saw her in the passenger’s side of my dad’s pickup truck, I knew right away it was her. Even though her long, dark hair was brushed and clean; and her skin was flushed all warm and pink, I knew. Just one look at her and I felt that same chill travel down my spine. I never took my eyes off of her as dad carefully helped her out of the truck and walked her inside.
I sat there in silence when he explained to me that she was going to be our house guest for a while. For however long “a while” was. And it took just about everything in me not to out her right then and there and tell my dad what I had seen the other night. But I shut my mouth.
Everything I had heard about her from all the gossip was 100% right. She was weird. She never spoke a word. When my dad would talk to her, she would only nod or shake her head. But even then, she never made any facial expressions. She never smiled, never frowned, never looked mad or cried or anything! It bothered me like crazy, but it never seemed to bother my dad. He’d talk to her for hours on end about anything and everything. He really did try to get any information out of her: a name, her age, maybe where she was from. Nothing. The only (and I really do mean the only) time it looked like she showed any interest in anything was when she was staring at the Magnolia shrubs in our back garden. The ones my mom had planted way back when. My dad told her she was a hundred times prettier than those flowers. He asked if he could call her Magnolia. She just nodded. He never did, though. He called her Maggie. When I first heard him call her that name, I went to my room and slammed the door. Didn’t come out all night.
My dad told me I was so frustrating because I was always “looking for reasons not to like her”. But it’s not like I had to look far, she was practically just handing me the reasons. Like when the three of us sat down for dinner together after she had been with us for about a week. She never took a single bite. Never even touched the food on her plate! Not just then, but at every single meal. She just sat there and stared at my dad the entire meal with those expressionless, dead eyes. I mean it, she never took her eyes off of him. Never once looked at me, even when I was the one talking. Eventually, when dad and I were halfway through our meals, I finally got the courage to speak up.
“Aren’t you going to eat something?” I asked her.
In an instant, her head just snapped to me. If I had moved my head like that, my neck would’ve been sore for days. I thought maybe she’d look angry, but she still didn’t really look…anything, really. I kinda sank into my seat a little bit looking back at her. “Well aren’t you hungry?” I asked.
My dad just let out a loud laugh and smacked his hand on the table.
“Taylor, you never ask a woman about what she eats! That’s just one of the rules of life.”
“I’m just saying, I haven’t seen her eat since she got here,” I said. It was at that moment I really realized that Magnolia had never once looked at me the entire time she was there. Feeling her eyes on me just made me feel so small and vulnerable. My dad just rolled his eyes and kept shoveling food into his mouth. He spoke while he chewed.
“Yeah. Because a real woman watches her figure. You could learn a thing or two from her! Maybe when you’re done with all this tomboy shit you’ll be glad she came here.”
Magnolia’s eyes finally turned back to my dad. After that, my stomach sort of felt sick. I pushed my food away with the plate still half full and excused myself to my room. I heard my dad laughing behind me and telling her “Look, she’s already taking a page out of your book! You’re a good influence on her!”
I really thought he would start to notice how everything went to shit when she showed up. Like when all the plants started to die. He never really took care of mom’s garden after she passed, but he did like it. I was the one that kept everything watered. Maybe I didn’t take out the weeds as often as I was supposed to, but I still kept it alive. But ever since Magnolia showed up at our house, keeping the plants alive seemed like something impossible all of a sudden. Every day, I’d watch as the leaves would wither, the stems would turn gray, and the petals would fall off each flower. When I told my dad he just told me I was a lousy gardener. He didn’t even listen when I told him it wasn’t just the garden. It was the grass! The sprinklers suddenly didn’t do jack shit to the lawn, it was yellow and flaky. The bushes, the trees, everything was dying in the middle of summer. My dad would blame the heatwave- the one we weren’t even having. Deep down, I just knew it was her. I just knew she was killing everything.
And one morning, when I woke up and looked out the window, it was worse than I ever could’ve imagined.
Dozens and dozens of crows were just dead on the lawn. I had never seen so many crows gathered in one place, let alone…dead. All I remember is screaming when I looked at them. My dad came running and took a look. In all my life I had never seen him in stunned silence until then. After a while of heavy breathing he just mumbled “what…the hell?” and pressed his hand up against the glass. I was crying my eyes out. I didn’t want to look but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t stop thinking about all those poor birds. What had done this to them? My dad shook his head, snapped himself out of his trance, and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Taylor, Maggie’s in my bedroom right now. I need you to go in there and just keep her company. Don’t let her look outside. I’m going to take care of it.” He said with a sort of frantic determination. I gawked at him with disbelief. It took all of my strength not to ask why Maggie was even in his room this early.
“Why not? Shouldn’t we tell her-”
“No!” my dad yelled. His grip on my shoulder tightened as he pulled me in. “Look, I don’t know what’s happened to her but she’s been through enough. She’s a sweet girl. I don’t want her seeing something like this. She doesn’t deserve it. Now just do what you’re told and keep her from looking out the window, ok?”
I wiped my eyes and nodded to him. The pit in my stomach felt deeper than an abyss. I felt like screaming and sobbing. Why was he going to such lengths to comfort her? Why didn’t he even stop to help me? Before I could say anything else, dad had already run out of the room. When I heard the front door slam, I took a deep breath and walked across the hall to his bedroom.
The door was still wide open. Magnolia was sitting at the edge of my dad’s bed, wearing one of his old, baggy t-shirts and a pair of boxers like they were shorts. I peered at her from the doorframe, quiet enough to where she didn’t see me coming.
I don’t even know how to write this….she didn’t…have pupils. Magnolia’s eyes were just white. No iris, no pupil, nothing. Her face was pointed at the wall, completely unmoving. But those eyes…How do I even explain that? Is that something that just happens to people? I stared at her with my jaw dropped for quite a while, waiting to see any change. She was the same lifeless doll she always seemed to be. Clenching my fists, I finally stepped into view and turned on the bedroom light.
“Magnolia? You alright?” I asked, hesitantly.
She just blinked. Right when her eyes opened back up, she looked normal. Iris, pupils, all of it was back. Her head snapped in my direction again, and I rubbed my neck. I tried to think of anything to say, anything to do to buy my dad time.
“My dad is…busy real quick. He told us…we should get ready for breakfast, ok?” I croaked out.
Magnolia never nodded in response to me, like she did for my dad. It was like she didn’t view me as worth the response. In one motion she just got up, walked over to the adjacent bathroom, and positioned herself in front of the mirror.
I watched silently as she combed through her hair with her fingers. There was nothing normal about her movements. She looked like a programmed robot just going through the motions of combing hair. Her head only turned when it was absolutely necessary, and she never seemed to comb the same spot twice.
It was when I saw her reflection that I really started feeling sick. She was staring right at the mirror, faced completely in front of it, but her reflection…it wasn’t mirroring that. Her reflection’s face was pointed down, and the eyes were like they were staring at the floor. It was as if her own reflection couldn’t bear to make eye contact with her.
My dad told me to watch her but I just couldn’t after seeing her eyes. Not after seeing the mirror. I felt sick to my stomach and I felt like I was going to hurl. I ran out of the room and spent the next half hour in my bathroom, dry-heaving over the toilet. Every time I even so much as thought of Magnolia, I felt my stomach twist into knots. I felt like hell.
Of course, my dad was pissed when he came back inside and found that I wasn’t watching her. Luckily for me, I guess she never looked outside. Otherwise, he really might’ve gone off on me. He didn’t even care when he found me bent over the toilet. He just secretly told me that he tossed all the crows in a garbage bag and put them out front for the trash man. The second he mentioned the crows, I finally hurled.
The rest of that day, I couldn’t stand to be anywhere near my dad and Magnolia. While he was snuggling up to her on the couch and whispering to her, I kept thinking back to, oh I don’t know, the literal bag filled with crow corpses sitting on our front lawn. I locked myself in my room again, because that was all I seemed to do while she was there. I cried for so long that it finally felt like I just plain ran out of water in my body. My head was pounding, my stomach was still doing somersaults, and somewhere in my house my dad was canoodling some psychotic stranger while dead things sat on our property. I wondered what the hell had happened to my life. How did it ever get to that point?
It was late that night. Around midnight or so. I couldn’t sleep. My head was filled with pictures of dead birds. Not even wandering around the house helped tired me out. No amount of warm milk or counting sheep was going to help me. I went out to the living room and looked out the window, at the trash bag sitting on the curb. But something wasn’t right. The bag was…leaking. There was a dark puddle around it.
Looking back on this, I think I might be the stupidest person to ever exist. Because what did I do then? I went out and opened up the garbage bag and looked inside.
And then I hurled all over the street.
The crows were still there. I could barely make them out in the street light. But they were covered in this thick black ooze. Not only that, they were completely missing their heads. The bag was now full of dozens of decapitated crow corpses. I remember falling to my hands and knees and retching all over the concrete. I wanted to tell my dad. Something was wrong and I wanted to tell him. I looked over at the house, to his bedroom window. And there she was. Magnolia. Standing in the bedroom window, staring at me intensely. Ooze was dripping from her hands and mouth.
I slept on the sidewalk that night- if you could even call it sleeping. After she descended behind the curtains, I stayed up all night staring at the bedroom window. There was no fucking way I was going back in that house. When my dad found me, he yelled at me for making a scene. He didn’t listen to me about the crows. In fact, he specifically told me not to mention them anymore, because it might upset her. Fucking right.
He took me to the general store the next day. We left Magnolia home. I really didn’t want her alone in my house, but the chance to be alone with my dad was so much more important to me. In the car, I told him everything. I told him that I saw her that night in the lake, I told him about the crow heads, I told him about the mirror, and about her eyes. And he listened to everything. But it ended with him belly-laughing right at my face.
“You know, you have a really stupid way to try and get me to break up with her. I mean really- couldn’t you just say you don’t like her and leave it at that? Why do you have to make up gross shit like this? No wonder you don’t have that many friends, Taylor,” he sneered.
“Dad, all of this is real! I swear to God! I saw it all with my own two eyes!” I yelled.
“Look, if you have a problem with me dating another woman after your mom, we can work that shit out. But all of this insane bullcrap you’re trying to pull just ain’t going to cut it!”
“This isn’t bullcrap and this isn’t about mom! I’m telling you the truth! I saw all of it!”
“Taylor Lynne just shut up! Christ!” Yelled my dad. We were at a stoplight. His hands slammed down on the steering wheel so hard it shook the whole car. “Maggie is a woman down on her luck and you’re just out here rubbing salt on the wound trying to ruin what little reputation she has. I didn’t raise you to be like this for God’s sake!”
“I’m. Not. Lying,” my voice shook as I spoke through my teeth. His face was turning bright red as he slammed his hands down again.
“I don’t ask you for much, do I? Shit, do I ask you for anything at all?! When you decided you wanted to join band club, didn’t I fork over all my paychecks to buy you the instrument you stopped playing after a year? Didn’t I pay for all your clothes- the ones that just ‘weren’t cool’ only a few months later? I give and I give and I give for your ungrateful ass and what do I get? Jack shit! Now look, I ain’t exactly a good catch here and despite all of that, I got a girl back home that actually likes me and wants me. And you don’t like her- so what, I have to be unhappy too? Well when’s it my turn, Taylor? When do I get to be happy then, huh?!”
We never even made it to the store. He turned the pickup around and drove us right back home. We didn’t say a word to each other after that. I was trying my best to stop myself from making any sound while I cried.
He left me in the car while he walked up the steps to the house and slammed the front door behind him. I hadn’t seen him that mad in a long, long time. It took me about fifteen minutes until I got myself out of the truck and all the way to my room. But when I got there, it was a fucking nightmare. My entire room was trashed. My bedsheets were thrown around, all my clothes were on the floor, my laptop was broken in half, my shoes were torn up, and there were scratches all down the walls. I couldn’t even scream. I was shocked into silence. I was looking all around my room at the massacre of all my belongings. That familiar twist in my stomach came back. I was staring at everything in horror.
That’s when I finally found Magnolia. Her eyes were locked right onto mine. They weren’t lifeless. They were wild- wide-opened and bloodshot, with deep bags under them. Staring at me right through the crack in my closet door. I screamed full blast and ran. I ran out of the house, down the street, and a few neighborhoods over. I didn’t stop running no matter how tired my legs got or how sick my stomach felt. I don’t even remember when I stopped screaming. It felt like if I ever stopped, even just to catch my breath, Magnolia would get me.
About an hour later my dad finally picked me up. When he realized I was missing, he got in the pickup and drove up and down the streets calling for me. I had dropped my phone somewhere in the house and had no way to answer his calls. God, the look he gave me when he found me. He had to physically grab me by the neck of my shirt and drag me, kicking and screaming, into the pickup. He put the child lock on and everything while I tried clawing my way out of the car. I puked more than once in the passenger’s seat. Even so, he never yelled at me or even scolded me.
He had to drag me back to my room. My eyes were darting everywhere, looking for her. I never saw her the entire way to my room. When I got in, I ran to the closet and burst it open. She wasn’t there either. I dropped to the ground crying and tucked myself into the corner of my room. My dad calmly shut the door behind him.
“She was in here! She was in my room!” it was the only words I was able to get out while I cried.
“I know she was,” my dad said. His surprisingly calm voice was scaring me. “Look, I talked to her when I saw you run out. She was in here. She admitted it when I asked. And that wasn’t ok. Look I….damn, I didn’t even realize,” he was choking back tears himself. I barely heard him through my tears. He eventually left me alone for a while, coming back about ten minutes later with a cup of my favorite tea. By then my breathing had regulated. There was something peaceful about being out of Magnolia’s sight. Nervously, I drank the tea while my dad talked.
“You’re…you’re clearly going through something right now. I don’t know what. I thought you were just moody. But I ain’t ever seen a kid act the way you’re acting right now. And I’m sorry I didn’t take it seriously.” He was fiddling with his watch while he spoke. I knew he couldn’t look me in the eye, it was sort of a pride thing. He’d always been like that. “And Maggie…I really do like her, Taylor, I do. I don’t want to stop seeing her. And we talked about boundaries and how she shouldn’t be coming into your personal space without asking. But hell, kid, it’s a mess in here, can you blame her for wanting to clean it up? But we’ll work on that. She’s making an effort to be better to you. I want you to make an effort for her.”
“She’s making an effort?!” I just about gagged. “What the hell is she doing to make an effort for me?!”
“Taylor, she’s trying to get you to like her! I mean hell, she even made you your favorite tea!”
I stared down at the empty cup in my hands and choked back a gasp. Funny, it was the first time I couldn’t puke in days, even though I really, really wanted to this time. I dropped the cup to the floor and tried to stand, but my legs were shaking so violently I could barely make it. I dropped to the ground and reached out.
“Dad, I-”
That was the last thing I ever said to him.
I woke up much, much later. It couldn’t have been any earlier than two o’clock in the morning. My head was so foggy. My stomach felt worse than it had my entire life. My body had the shivers, and I felt like I was going to die. No, I was sure of it. I was sure I would die. I crawled out of my bedroom and into the hall. There was black ooze all over the floor. It was all over the walls. It was on the doorknobs. And my dad’s bedroom door was wide open. It took me a few minutes to gain the shakiest of footing I needed to stand. I tried calling out for help, but my voice had been shot. My throat couldn’t even make sounds.
When I peered into my dad’s room, the smell that hit me nearly knocked me out again. It smelled like rot. It smelled like the type of mold that only grows on corpses. The lights were out. My dad was laying on his bed. He was naked under the sheets. His eyes were wide open, staring at the ceiling. There were black handprints all over his chest. The sheets on his lower half were completely soaked through with black ooze and crimson blood. I tried calling out again but no sound came. I stumbled and fell against the doorframe, barely able to hold myself up. He wasn’t breathing. I stared at his gut for the longest time but I never saw him draw a breath. And I never would again.
My eyes trailed off to the ooze all over the ground. When the puddles finally stopped, there were black footprints all on our hallway floors. It was almost like a pattern, there would be a few footprints, then another puddle. It continued like that.
For an hour straight, I followed the footprints. I was limping the entire way. The fact I managed to hold myself up at all was a miracle I could never explain. I followed them out of the back of the house. I followed them along the edge of the woods. I followed them all the way down to the lake.
And there she was. Under the moonlight, Magnolia practically glowed. She looked so different from the first night I saw her. Her skin looked warm and radiant, her hair shone like a million stars. She was naked again, but both of her hands were placed so gingerly on her stomach, rubbing the flesh with care. She had the most gentle touch- the kind of loving touch only a mother could have. And her eyes lit up when she stared down at her stomach. And, for the first time, I watched as her lips curled into the most beautiful smile I had seen in my life.
And she stood like that, smiling and touching her stomach for quite a while. Then, silently, she walked forward. She walked into the lake. And I never saw her again.